


Cycle

by rukafais



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, but once you've read the premise you will probably understand who's going to be in it, if i tagged everyone that's going to be in this fic i'd be here all day, so i will spare the giant tag clouds
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2019-09-24 19:46:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17106986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rukafais/pseuds/rukafais
Summary: They sleep. They wake. The world reverses, turns back on itself, and the Knight finally understands the words left by their sire, their father, their absent and distant creator;void, the force that denies time.The power to wake a kingdom from its slumber. The power to break a cycle. All these things, they know.But the power to snatch just one more life away from its inevitable end--They do not know, in truth, if they can do such an impossible thing. But there is power in them, lying dormant.All they have to do is reach out andtake it.





	1. Rebirth

_They have never asked for anything, but they ask for it now, a childish prayer._

_In this kingdom that has already seen so much death, so much regret, so much pain_

_let there be someone they can save._

* * *

 They fall, they shatter, they die. Again and again and again. It is a common thing, now, in Hallownest; the will to survive glues their broken pieces back together, and they remember little of what destroyed them. The echo of their death haunts them, rages against the force that stole their voice and sealed them in this lifeless mask.

This death is

different.

Their consciousness fragments; they dream of painful light, of fire and blue water and a thousand different fragments they have no possible context for. Voices both living and lost shake them to their core, blending into something discordant and terrifying.

(They don’t understand.)

Something in them, outside them, holding them in its claws says _you will_ and they slip under and drown in darkness-

* * *

 When they wake, they are surrounded by howling winds at the edge of the wilds, half-buried by sand, and they claw their way out of their resting place with a sudden fervour.

They don’t know why they’d drifted off to sleep _here,_ of all places - though it had been a long and dangerous journey, and they were tired, even with their endurance. But, at least, they’d reached their destination, the source of that mysterious call that haunted them in sleep.

They don’t know what calls them, only that they must go; so they do. They find their way through the ruined paths with a dexterity they didn’t expect from themselves, as if they’ve come here before.

They stand before the ruined door.

_Hallownest awaits._

The kingdom. Hallownest. Lost, ruined, eternal. _Cursed and sacrificed for._

(Why does that name sound so familiar to them?)

They go on.

* * *

 A lone bug stands by a bench, cloak pulled tight to shelter from the ceaseless wind. Lumaflies flutter in their crystal cages, providing flickering light to a town that seems almost completely vacant.

_Dirtmouth._

The name of this quiet, dusty place leaps to their mind, though no sign is there to announce it. There is a feeling of warmth, of safety; nothing will harm them here-

(They have never seen this place before.)

_You have been here before._

\- but they do not pause. they go straight up to the old, bowed bug, to greet him. It’s only polite.

He looks down at them with sunken, tired eyes; they note the dusty colour of his cloak, the way his shell seems to be a weight he can’t quite bear, how he himself seems to have faded along with the town. He speaks to them about the travelers who have disappeared and the kingdom far beneath, that subterranean place full of decay and danger.

They don’t wait for him to finish, in a rare moment of impoliteness on their part. Instead, they tug insistently on his cloak.

“Hrm? What is it, little traveller?”

They dig in their cloak. They think they have something left, from their long journey.

It is a little thing, some trinket they found eyecatching enough to pick up and take along with them. A brooch made of some foreign, smooth stone, marbled prettily, carved into the shape of a butterfly’s wings.

They offer it to him. A gift for someone they’ve just met.

_A gift for someone lonely, who was warmed by a flower._

He is surprised, and then delighted, taking it with a slightly-shaking hand.

They sit with him a while, before they depart for the underground. He speaks to them of a slowly emptying town, a sickness, a temple where bugs once sought peace in prayer

_My sibling. Their prison._

(why does it make their chest ache to think of?)

but something changed.

_The plague. That sickness. **Her.**_

“You have a way about you that makes me want to talk,” the old bug suddenly says, and his tired voice is apologetic. “I do hope I’m not bothering you.”

They shake their head and reach out for his hand. After a moment, he takes it.

It’s a small, shared moment of comfort in a cold place. It gives them a warmth they didn’t quite realise they were missing.

Eventually, they let go.

"I hope I'll see you return."

They squeeze his hand in a sudden moment of impulsiveness, sealing the promise as best they can.

Eventually, they stand at the edge of the well and leap down.

They’ve faced greater heights than this.

Hallownest

_the place you once fled, the place you’ve come back to_

awaits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I'd write a fic where EVERYONE WHO CAN POSSIBLY LIVE GETS TO LIVE and by god I am going to deliver.
> 
> Short prologue, next chapters will be longer, I promise! (Without just rehashing and rewriting parts of the ENTIRE GAME because that'd get tedious quickly)


	2. Nostalgia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Knight remembers things they haven't even done yet, and meets strangers they already know. They still have no explanation for why.

They explore. They fall and tumble and race through passages that are at once known and unknown to them; something long lost but achingly familiar.

They sit at the temple for a long, long time. The old bug up above had said that brave bugs once went to pray, but no longer. There was no peace to be found within the walls, not any more.

There is no peace there, despite the stillness.

The temple ( _the prison where their sibling lies_ ) makes them feel uneasy; they can feel the distant, furious throb of a feverish heartbeat somewhere deep inside. They can feel an echo of ( _someone else’s_ ) pain, something old and enduring.

But they sit there regardless, cross-legged on the floor, staring at the masks, the door, the darkness given shape. ( _The darkness from the place you were born._ )

They have no real experience with prayer; it’s something that they’ve always experienced from the outside, looking in. Small, vital things - trinkets and charms, songs and chants - that invoke the protection of something bigger than yourself.

They have never felt the need to invoke something bigger than themselves. How could they? If they could not save themselves, then nothing could.

Deep down they think, with an ache they have grown used to, _even if I had the voice to cry out, nobody would answer._

But the voice in their dreams still echoes. Its pain feels familiar, and frantic. They hear it every time they sleep; they cannot forget it.

So they bow their head and pray, as best they can. A scattered, half-remembered litany for peace and happiness, for a blessing, for protection. Not for themselves, but for someone else.

The pain that, to them, patterns itself on the temple’s walls like a sigil, seems to abate just for a little while.

The masked bug ( _a friend left behind_ ) who has been standing quiet beside them all this time bows his head and says the words, makes them real in the world and not just in their head, and they’re grateful. It’s not the same as theirs, but the sincerity of it, its force, is the same.

“I imagine whoever is interred here might need such a thing,” he explains--

( _Quirrel cleans his nail in another time and place, in an abandoned temple near a seething lake, and answers an unspoken question about worship._

_“I can see why bugs would adopt it,” he muses, thoughtful. “The worship of a god. It must be comforting to know that someone is watching over you, no matter how distant. Reassuring, even.”_

_But he shrugs, and gives that little laugh of his. “It’s not for me, though. I fear I’d be too lax about my safety, if I had such a thing!”_

_They tilt their head skeptically, because they can feel the edges of a story left untold, but his eyes simply crinkle in a hidden, enigmatic smile and he says nothing more than that._ )

\--and looks a little startled to hear himself say it.

The memory flees, and they would have blinked, if they were able. Where did that come from? They’ve never met, have they?

They get up, eventually, and leave; they have things they must do. They’ve lingered long enough.

Quirrel watches them leave with a faintly bemused expression that he can’t quite shake.

* * *

 

They meet a mapmaker, and later, that mapmaker’s wife. Cornifer and Iselda are ( _h_ _ave always been_ ) kind to them; it’s something they savour, something they appreciate. They buy the map, though they’re not sure why; it feels like they know this place already.

They stare at the mostly-blank page with its rough sketch, its endless potential waiting to be discovered

( _they use the warm, sickly light from a pile of growths too solid to cut through; the steady orange glow illuminates a map long since made complete. They feel a little annoyed, despite the urgency of the situation; they’ll have to fix it, now that the infection has overtaken the crossroads here. The paths have changed._ )

and shake their head a little, to try and clear it. More visions they don’t understand.

“Something wrong?” says Cornifer, head tilted quizzically as they sit by him and contemplate their map anew, now more filled out, and they shake their head once more, vigorously.

No, nothing is wrong, they think. They’re...exactly where they should be.

Somehow.

* * *

 

Their legs carry them to an abandoned village, to a shop on a cliff above where laughter emanates. They meet a shopkeeper ( _a Nailsage_ ), who mumbles about companions long past before they shake him to his senses.

( _If only it was that easy._ )

He hopes they’ll come see him, up above, and they do.

They stand at the counter, considering what to buy;

( _They count out the geo one by one, out of a childish attempt at payback for him driving such a hard bargain. They won’t ever argue with him - geo has always been a concept they’ve regarded with little care, and there’s always more of it to spare - but sometimes they feel slightly put out by the fact that buying things from Sly always leaves their pouch feeling much, much lighter._

_As he watches them count, he’s cranky at first, and then simply amused by their persistence - to their stubborn commitment to the idea._

_They wear the charm he’s given them in pride of place, shining on their cloak, and he offers a comment._

_“You remind me of Oro, Nailmaster,” he says, though there’s some strangeness in his tone. Something like fondness, but something like regret, too. “Just as brickheaded, just as stubborn.”_

_He picks up a particularly odd-shaped piece of geo, fingers tracing the warped, broken shape so different from its more uniform fellows. His eyes are distant, like he’s not really looking at it at all. “He always felt that he had to make up for something.”_

_They look up at him, a silent question. He rebuffs it with a snort._

_“I’m far too old to be traveling such a distance. If they want to see me, they can come themselves! And buy something from their old teacher, as a mark of respect.”_

_They empty out a few more higher-value pieces to finish the transaction- “So you’ve been holding out on me, have you? Could have done that this whole time and saved me the trouble!” - and pile it all up. They resist the urge to linger, to listen to his regrets;_

_but still, they know he’s not watching them leave. He still holds that piece of geo in his hands like it’s something special._

_They decide that maybe next time, they won’t wear the charm so prominently._ )

“Well, are you going to stand there or are you going to buy? If you’re going to be a living decoration, I might just charge you rent!”

Sly sounds acerbic, but there’s a hint of concern beneath it. They shake themselves free of a memory they haven’t had yet and exchange geo for a glowing fragment that sings to them, that vanishes in their hands. Its light gathers around their mask and is consumed.

They leave. There’s something they have yet to do, someone they’ve yet to meet.

( _They’re avoiding it, meeting her._ )

* * *

 

They wander into a glittering, light-filled place. It’s beautiful ( _the light makes them uneasy_ ). The almost-abandoned mineshaft echoes with the sound of a solitary pick.

The miner with a soft voice and an awkward laugh, with a stutter that takes up half her words, tells them they should join in sometime. Tells them that she thinks they’d have a beautiful voice, if only they’d sing.

They know they don’t. They don’t have a voice at all; they’ve never been able to make a sound. Still, they try (they try) for her.

( _They try anyway. No sound comes. They sing the song in their head, anyway, first in a kind of harmony with her, and then..._

 _They sing anyway. There is only silence, the dull tinking of a pick, but they sing regardless, because she cannot. In their head the song becomes a lament, a thing of mourning, a cry for burial. A song for the dead._ )

“N-no? M-maybe it’s just st-stage fright!” At the sound of her voice, they surface from yet another reverie.

She giggles at her own exclamation, and then her dark eyes crinkle in a hidden smile. “I d-definitely had trouble singing b-before!”

Before. ( _What before?_ ) They tilt their head inquisitively, and she laughs a little.

“I-if you come back later, I can t-tell you! I’ve just been so preoccupied, trying to r-remember the rest of the song...but I p-promise, if you really want to know, you can c-come see me!”

They nod, quietly, and...there was something they saw a few times. A long time ago, it seems like. A gesture to seal a bargain, made by children as small as they at play.

They hold out a hand, furthermost finger extended. She looks surprised, for a moment, and then she smiles once more.

“A p-pinky promise? I haven’t m-made one of those in ages!”

Still, she agrees to it. _Pinky promise,_ she says, _I’ll tell you later!_

Later, she says.

They don’t know if later will come. No unbidden vision guides them here, no feeling of remembering something they’ve never done before.

( _A bond. A promise. A chance of change._

 _It’s a start._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this is helping the structure take place in my head, thankfully, so I'm not flying completely blind and I can sort of see the shape of it now? But aaaa i don't know what I'm doing aaaaAAA
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the delay! It's been a while. I think this is less just "prevent everyone from dying" and has now also become "CAN YOU JUST TALK TO EACH OTHER" the literal fix-it fic


	3. Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myla works all alone, down in the light.
> 
> Sometimes, though she doesn't know why, she has a visitor.

She stops singing, eventually. She remembers the words, but her voice chokes and stills, like it doesn’t belong to her any more.

It seems right, not to sing. There are other songs, better songs, if only she knew the words.

_Prayers and exaltations for the light, forgotten. For the light, creeping on the edge of memory. For the light, for the light, for the light--_

Besides, the sounds she makes drown out the voice of the crystals _OBEY ME_ the voice that comes to her in dreams _I AM THE LIGHT_ and that can’t be right.

(Some small part of her remembers the words, and tries to sing them anyway, in feeble defiance.)

 _KILL THE EMPTY ONE_ the voice sings to her, and she doesn’t question it, and when it comes again-

( _i promised_ she says in the back of her head, _they’re my **friend**_ , she says, and is ignored, because her body isn’t hers any more, but she sings loudly because it’s the only form of protest she can manage.)

\- she turns her little pick on the empty intruder _KILL IT_ and it takes the wounds and flees from her, from the light inside her eyes and her head.

The mineshaft is filled with silence, with light. Everything as it should be.

( _it’s not fair_ , she says, but the voice doesn’t care, the crystals don’t care)

She remains, drowned in light.

_It remains that way for a while._

* * *

 She digs in the mineshaft, looking for crystals. They shine and glitter so beautifully, and sometimes she thinks she can hear them talking.

There are footsteps, and she turns.

“W-what’s that look for?”

She pauses her singing to look at her new visitor. They seem a little wary.

“N-nothing to be scared of! I d-don’t bite, h-ha ha! I don’t think I even can!”

She’s always been bad at jokes. And this little bug is only half her size, and she might have scared them.

They approach, nevertheless, and she feels a sort of strange relief, though she doesn’t know where it comes from.

She’s been working hard, here. All by herself. All alone.

“I-it’s b-been a while s-since I’ve had anyone visit me!”

(Nobody has ever visited her. She came here alone for a reason.)

“W-would you like to hear a song? Y-you can sing along with me, if you like.”

They nod. Yes. No.

“Y-you can’t sing?” They shake their head. No again.

“W-well, m-maybe you can join in!”

They don’t join in, but they tilt their head up, like they’re drinking in the sound.

Her singing is just a little stronger than before; the voices are a little less present in her head. They come back again and again, to listen to the verses.

She finds them an eager listener, and it brings words out of her she didn’t know she had.

“Y-you want to know about l-little old me? W-well, there’s not much to tell. I c-came all the way here to seek my fortune!” Her voice is slightly off, slightly distant, like she’s remembering something she doesn’t particularly want to.

“B-but that’s not really important, is it?”

The little bug in front of her empty thing reaches out for her hand, like they’re trying to reassure her, or to ask her something else;

she shakes her head. ( _Too shy, too forgiving, too naive. Little Myla, who wouldn’t survive, and yet the terrible truth was that she had when others had not--_ )

“I-I’m sure y-you’ve got b-better things to do than listen to m-me all day, h-ha ha!”

She laughs. They look away, like it hurts them. She immediately regrets it.

“If you c-come back later, I think I can r-remember another song! A d-different one. Um, happier, too. W-would you like that?”

They nod. Yes, they would. That part is clear enough.

“Then it’s a p-promise!”

The voice is harsh and angry, a song she doesn’t like. But she can’t seem to stop, either--

_She never does sing for them. Not this time, or the next, or the next--_

* * *

 Myla digs, and sings, and wonders why. She sings a cheerful little tune that has nothing at all to do with burying sisters or mothers or fathers; it is a song about a bug that rolls up and down the clouds, carrying the rain in its wings. When it flies, it leaves storms in its wake.

It is half a story, half a song, like many such things are.

The little bug that seems strangely familiar listens to it intently.

“D-did you like it?” she says, to her audience of one, and her visitor nods. Yes, they like it. It’s not something they’ve heard before.

(For the first time, they give back something other than their expectant silence.)

They draw something, in the ground. Scratching it in the stone. Myla leaves her work behind to sit with them and watch them.

“Y-you’re good at this!” she says, in clear delight. She takes her pick and adds little raindrops and little swirls of wind with a sharp edge, and forgets all about the crystals for a while.

When they leave, she feels a little lonely, and sometimes she looks at the drawings for company.

But as always, she goes back to her work.

After a while, the drawings go completely ignored.

In a brief burst of something that resembles spite, the her-that-isn’t scratches them out with strength she shouldn’t have.

(Myla sits silent inside her own head and watches, because it's all she can do.)

_Whenever the drawings happen - and sometimes they do happen, after that - the Knight comes back and finds them utterly destroyed.  
_

* * *

Myla puts aside her pick and draws on the mineshaft’s walls, away from the crystals that keep calling her. She feels tired and sad, and feels like she’s been working for so much longer than she actually has.

She doesn’t know when she last slept. She feels like she needs to, but she doesn’t think she can, not here. It’s so loud, so bright, and all she desires is darkness.

Stories and songs from her memories are scrawled onto the walls. Clumsy notes and words and symbols in spiralling circular patterns.

She traces them with careful claws and remembers how she learned them all, and she sings to drown out the sadness, the grief, the constant whispering that doesn’t let her sleep.

The little bug that is unfamiliar and familiar all at once comes to her, and sits by her side. She doesn’t ask for them to sing along with her, because somehow, deep in her heart, she knows they would have if they could.

Not having a voice to sing, to cry and to laugh, is such a foreign concept to her. It makes her heart ache. So to fill the silence, she sings at first, following the curve of the patterns she’s carved. Her friend, small and silent, traces them as she sings, clearly following along.

When she gets to the first broken line, she remembers why she forgot it, because songs are a way of preserving the past (and she forgot that too - how much has she lost here?), and the song becomes tears that she’s held back all this time, laughing and crying all at once.

“I m-miss them,” she says, into the echoing silence.

(The crystals sing, furious and loud and harsh. She ignores them.)

Her friend offers her their hand, and this time, she doesn’t pull away or refuse. They sit together for a long time, looking at the murals she’s carved.

Eventually, they scratch a few symbols, a few words, in the stone - and then they leave her at last.

Myla is alone in the mineshaft, and hungry, and tired.

She reads the map they’ve left her.

* * *

She climbs out of the mineshaft on legs that feel heavy. She navigates, carefully, through the crossroads she only barely remembers coming through to reach the mines; she hides from creatures and husks with that strange light inside, that pulse with some terrible sickness she doesn’t understand.

She climbs out of the well and finds a sleepy, quiet town. There’s no bed, but there is a bench, and a much older bug beside it.

“Ho there, stranger. Come to join our little town? Or are you just passing through?” His voice creaks like the pulleys of the mines she remembers from her past. It’s comforting.

“I d-don’t know,” she admits, at last. “A-am I allowed to stay here?”

He blinks at her. Clearly it’s not a question he gets asked very much, she thinks.

(How long has it been since she last thought like that?)

“Well, we have plenty of empty houses...”

He shows her a few. She picks one that seems comfortably roomy (she’s tired of claustrophobic spaces). It’s still furnished, if dusty.

Myla thinks it looks like the most luxurious thing she’s ever seen.

“I-is this all m-mine?”

“Nobody's coming to claim it,” he says, gloomily. “It might as well be yours.”

“Oh,” she says softly. They stand there together for a moment, before she awkwardly thanks him, and goes inside. She removes the lantern from her helmet, and puts her pickaxe and helmet on a nearby shelf, and takes it with her to the long-abandoned bed.

She shakes out the blankets and coughs as a cloud of dust puffs out. But it’s fine; she’s had worse.

She climbs into the bed, and falls asleep within seconds.

She does not dream.

It’s the best sleep she’s ever had.

(And best of all, after she sleeps, she wakes, too. Not into a dream, but into the quiet darkness of an abandoned house, and she can lie in bed as long as she wants.

She has no work to do, and nothing that compels her to do it.

It's a gift.)

* * *

 The Knight wonders at the lights of one more house they haven’t seen before (they have no echo of it, either).

“A young lass moved in here just the other day,” Elderbug explains, in his usual tired way. “Some kind of miner from the peak, judging by her helmet and pickaxe. A shy sort, but she’s good company. Comes to talk to me all the time, and everyone else too.”

They listen, for a moment.

From one of the lit-up houses comes a familiar voice, singing a different tune;

they would have laughed and sung along, if they could.

( _The next time they die and come back, they practically dash all the way to Dirtmouth, dreading what they'll find there._

_But there is still one more lit-up house, and all they can feel is relief._

_She doesn't quite remember them, though she greets them with a confused sort of happiness._

_It's enough. It's enough. It's more than enough._ )

Back they go into Hallownest's darkness, into that endless place; they carry the memory in them, a comfort against the horrors.

They still have more to save.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> how many times did the knight reset to get this right, you might be wondering
> 
> That's a great question and I'm going to be very mysterious about the answer but it's not a very small number, I would say


	4. Complication

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Knight meanders, stalls their journey, and thinks about how to tackle a particularly stubborn problem.

They wander, filling out their map. They pry open the jaws of a monstrous vengefly, almost absentmindedly; angry words passing through them, water through a sieve.

Zote is a grumbling old bug, only saved from his own helplessness by their intervention. Ungrateful and crotchety, foolish and proud, lashing out at every turn.

Every time they die, through battle, through falls and accidents and thorns, they find him there. No matter how many times they fight, no matter how many times he falls flat on his face after they’re done, it doesn’t stick.

But he, too, still deserves a life. And they are stubborn, and used to a hand extended being bitten or angrily, proudly rejected. ( _And maybe too, there is pity there - for someone who was taught or learned, in the past, never to ask for help._

_He made his choice, as they made theirs. To reject, to accept.)_

Though, perhaps, if they could teach him to be better at defending himself...

_(They have a sudden recollection of someone teaching them to swing a nail. His bulk is large, but not intimidating. His eyes crinkle in a sudden smile._

_The memory is theirs and not theirs all at once. A fragment of what was._ )

Quirrel meets them in a village hidden deep, among mushrooms and acid. He advises them the same way he did before _(how many times before? they don’t know; their would-be memory, the ghosts of their previous selves clattering and calling in their head, is elusive. But they remember him with fondness. Every version of them, if it can be called that, remembers him with fondness)_ and they simply tilt their head up and listen to him.

They like the way his voice sounds, pleasant and soft _(it reminds them of the water that falls, in the strange city that haunts them so prominently)_. They linger for a moment in his company, wondering what he finds so fascinating in seething acid and unpleasant gas, and maybe, they think, it reminds him of the place he lost _(and what place is that, they ask the lost pieces of their own self or selves, and receive no answer)._

They stare into the acid, looking for nothing much in particular, amusing themselves briefly with finding patterns in the seething bubbles, and they come to a decision, quite suddenly. They pitter-patter away into the wastes, their footsteps quick to fade, struck with a sudden idea.

Some time after they leave, Quirrel is still standing there and watching the spot where they disappeared from his sight, his expression creased in a sort of confused thoughtfulness. Whatever he’s thinking, he keeps to himself, and soon he too departs and leaves no trace.

* * *

Zote grumbles and flails in the grip of the giant bug’s jaws. Rather than challenge it, like they have so many times before, they sit.

They wait. And wait.

And wait.

It doesn’t take long for Zote to stop berating the creature holding him captive, a hunter looking for its next meal - and to start berating them instead.

He throws out insults about their parents (ineffective), their upbringing (vaguely amusing, considering they had to raise themselves and have no real opinions on what their manners are - they were serviceable, passable, and that is enough), their honor (they sort of shrug at that), and simply bad words (which they know many of already, but some are new, and they see it as an opportunity for a vocabulary lesson).

He shouts until he’s hoarse. The Knight wonders at his impressive breath capacity, and at the giant vengefly’s patience, but then again, it’s infected. Words probably don’t even register any more, except the ones in its head, or the ones that have been put into it by instinct alone.

_(They were worried it would simply snap him in half and be done with it, and they’d have to find somewhere to die and try to save him again. But by the way its eyes jitter maniacally, it’s having trouble focusing on targets, and is currently in a state of pure distraction, which is good._

_They’ve learned something new, too.)_

There are periods of silence, but only because Zote is winding back up for another barrage of insults.

He doesn’t open up to them, waiting patiently below _(and why would he? From his point of view, they’ve done little to help, and in any case, it’s not as if you owe a stranger anything about your personal life)._

In fact, it’s the opposite.

He accuses them of mocking him (untrue; they have little time to spend on humor in survival, and even less time to spare a moment for every bug that’s ever snapped back at an outstretched hand), pitying him (at least partially true), being useless (that gets a shrug), being vain (that gives them pause, because they’ve never considered it), and being incompetent (another shrug). He never seems to run out of words, and unique ones at that, and if nothing else, it indicates a fairly impressive vocabulary.

Finally, he makes a move of his own accord. Apparently quite angry by this point, he howls furiously that he’s going to teach them a lesson, and wrestles an arm free to grab for his weapon (as poor a weapon as it is).

The Knight stands up, at that, and walks around until they’ve judged they’re at an angle where they can meet his eyes without too much difficulty.

They stare directly at him and make a beckoning gesture, a little _come on_ twitch of two tiny fingers.

_(It’s something they’ve seen time and time again in the wilderness, bugs fighting each other for sport or dispute or simply because they’ve fallen far enough that there’s no other option left to them. They don’t look for fights, so they’d never made use of it, but they’ve found a use for the gesture anyway.)_

He lets out a very impressive and very loud word that they don’t recognise, but are fairly certain is very rude. They fix it in their memory, and watch expectantly as he painstakingly struggles free, cursing the vengefly holding him tight, the Knight themselves, the ‘miserable blasted wasteland of a cavern’ he’s in, the weather, the sky, and the world in general.

He jabs the Vengefly King in the eye, more by accident than anything else, and it screams and drops him. He falls onto the ground, face first.

They can’t help but applaud.

He propels himself upright by sheer indignation more than anything else, advancing on them, and the Knight simply indicates the enroaching threat with their nail in a sort of ‘yell at me later’ way.

They don’t fight alongside many people. They don’t think Zote will do much, to be honest. But if they’re going to train him (or try, maybe, if he accepts it, which they severely doubt), if they’re going to try something different, then it might as well begin now.

He has more stubborness than enthusiasm, and both of those are in much more abundant supply than his actual skill, which is close to nothing at this point. He bounces around the cavern, shouting angrily and only occasionally hitting anything; most of the time he hits the walls, or sometimes himself. The weapon is not sharp enough to cut into their mutual enemy, but it’s certainly a distraction.

He doesn’t die. They think that’s good, because it was what they were aiming for in the first place, and life is its own reward. And maybe he'll feel better, and less shouty, if he feels like he didn't have to be rescued.

“I hope you’ve learned something!” he barks, folding his arms, standing heroically (he looks a little like he’s eaten something bad and is swelling up) on the giant vengefly’s corpse, and they just nod.

They certainly have learned something. Mostly swear words. But it’s better than it was, they think.

It’s not the same as saving Myla; not the same bond, not nearly so close. But they’ve done something here, and that’s good enough.

“And the next time I see you - we’ll have a _proper_ fight, you cur! One where I can _truly_ show you the extent of my skill!"

They sort of absentmindedly nod again, and wave, and walk off, mind already buzzing with thoughts. Of course, he has something to say about that too - but, for once, they’re not listening.

* * *

 Myla is humming when the old bug stumbles into town. She doesn’t notice at first, but she definitely notices when he starts almost shouting at her.

He’s saying a lot of things. She’s not really used to anyone talking to her, so she just stares.

“What are you looking at? Have you never seen a warrior as glorious as me, Zote the Mighty?”

The little miner stares for a moment, wondering if this is a trick question, and hazards a cautious comment.

“N-no?”

He looks genuinely caught off-guard. She doesn’t know why, but she does feel sort of sorry for him, seeing the expression on his face.

Her memories of a time before are fairly hazy still, but though she’s never met this bug specifically...

_“Empty shells make loud sounds,” says someone. She doesn’t remember who, but she must have asked for an explanation._

_“It means - bugs who have a lot to say often don’t have much else.”_

_“That sounds sad,” her voice says. Her voice, in her memories, always sounds strange and foreign. She doesn’t stutter, either, or at least not as much. “I can’t imagine having n-nothing else.”_

“Well,” he says, after a moment. “Be sure to take note! If you ever want to be a warrior - not that you look like much - you should follow my example!”

“S-sure!” she replies, with as much cheer as she can muster.

She thinks he looks a bit happier, maybe, at the positive reply. It’s hard to tell with someone who has such a permanently grouchy expression, but she feels pleased for her efforts.

She goes back to humming, kicking her feet on the bench. The nice old bug who lives here had liked her songs, and said that they reminded him of times when the town wasn’t so quiet, so she’s trying to work on it to make him happy.

Maybe, if she’s lucky, he’ll sing along too. And if she’s extra lucky, and maybe extra friendly, Zote might join in. 

Myla can’t remember much of her life before, but she remembers that she came here for a reason, and she remembers that she was lonely.

Now she has a whole three bugs she knows, and even if one of them’s not so nice, that’s still more than she had before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been juggling like a million things at once so writing is hard (and it took me a while to write Zote, because even if he's not a character I particularly care for, I do want to still write him seriously). Apologies for the delay!


End file.
